Deutsche Bank has hired a team of 12, including three brothers, for its financial institutions group from Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, after recruiting a team of six FIG bankers from Lehman Brothers in November.

Eric Heaton was the treasurer for Merrill Lynch and prior to that role, he was co-head of Americas financial institutions, specialising in US depository institutions. David Heaton was the head of global asset management, investment banking at Merrill.

They are identical twins and also brothers to Seth Heaton, who was in FIG investment banking at Merrill with coverage responsibility for US depository institutions, alongside Badinehal and Braunstein.

Slimmon was a senior banker in the Merrill’s European financial institutions investment banking group and Gibb was head of financial institutions, Asia Pacific and Australia in addition to serving as head of the financial sponsors group for Asia Pacific at Merrill Lynch.

The team will report to Jorge Calderon, co-head of global corporate finance coverage and global head of the financial institutions group at Deutsche Bank.

Nelson Chai, Merrill's former chief financial officer, who was hired by John Thain, also is leaving Bank of America, according to people familiar with the matter. He didn't return calls for comment.

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Michael Cohrs, head of global banking at Deutsche Bank, said: “These appointments are a confirmation of Deutsche Bank’s commitment to the future of its financial institutions business, where we are certain to see continued growth in coming years.

Deutsche Bank’s mergers and acquisitions department has often been regarded as the weak link in the firm’s global markets and banking business, which it has built from scratch in just over a decade. However, last year it came of age following the collapse in credit markets, an internal reshuffle and the emergence of its financial institutions sector coverage team.

Three years ago, the bank integrated its financial institutions group under Calderon in an attempt to win more M&A and capital markets business.

That has begun to pay off, with the bank emerging as one of the lead advisers to Barclays.

Last October, an integrated team from its markets and banking division that included head of global markets Anshu Jain advised the UK Treasury on the terms of its £37bn (€43bn) bailout of the banking sector.

Its work with the Treasury led to its appointment as adviser to France’s Banques Populaires on the potential merger with Caisse d’Epargne—not an area of geographic strength for the bank.

Last November, Deutsche continued to strengthen its FIG practise by hiring six former Lehman Brothers bankers including William Curley and Anthony Viscardi.

Curley and Viscardi advised the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the US government agency for deposit insurance for commercial banks, when Deutsche Bank and Barclays Capital advised FDIC on the sale of IndyMac Bank FSB last month.

The California bank was seized by the FDIC last July before being sold for $13.9bn (€10.6bn) to a private equity consortium advised by Merrill Lynch.

The deal was the first time that a private equity consortium was able to buy a large US bank.